The subject matter herein relates generally to terminal crimping devices for crimping electrical terminals to other components, such as wires.
Terminal crimping machines have long been used in the connector industry to effect high-speed mass termination of various terminals to wires. It is common practice for the terminal crimping machine to have an interchangeable tooling assembly called an applicator. The terminal crimping machine includes a movable tool that is moved towards a base component in a crimp zone during a crimping stroke to crimp a terminal to the wire. Some terminal crimping machines have terminal feeders used to feed a terminal strip, having plural terminals interconnected with each other and/or a carrier strip, directly into the crimp zone.
Known terminal crimping machines are not without disadvantages. For instance, the frame and housing of the components used to press the movable component occupy a large amount of space around the crimp zone. Additionally, the feeder assembly is mounted to the frame near the crimp zone. Some terminal crimping machines also include a wire feeder mounted to the frame near the crimp zone for feeding the wire to the crimp zone. Thus, there is a limited amount of unoccupied space around the crimp zone. Some systems may require crimping to the wire when the wire is included in a workpiece. For example, the wire may be a magnet wire mounted on a motor, such as an electronically commutated motor, where the wires defining the windings are tightly wound around a cap and parallel windings need to be electrically connected, such as by splicing wires of adjacent windings. There is insufficient space around the crimp zone for positioning the workpiece and the associated wire for crimping the terminal thereto.
A need remains for terminal crimping machine that provides adequate space around the crimp zone for receiving wires, such as wires that are integrated with workpieces.